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1technodiabla
Starting a thread on this book-- but several comments on this book can also be found in some of the other threads.
SPOILERS (possibly not even accurate ones)
What a confounding read! I feel like I got the point of the novel-- the themes, the allegories, that was all clear. But the plot? I think I got it, but I'm not 100% convinced and I'm not even sure it matters. That said, I did like the book, but I would've enjoyed it more if I knew what was going on a little more. It seems purposefully confusing.
A box man is essentially a man who chooses to shut himself off from society as a self protection mechanism. He observes but is himself invisible. The Box Man in the story is one such person, but finds himself lured out by the temptation of love/sex. He struggles. Does he want to put himself out there and take the risk, expose himself? Ultimately he takes the risk. I believe he was happy with that decision even though he was rejected in the end. But he does choose to return to isolation.
I got very confused with the story of the doctor/addict and in the end wasn't sure if there were 2 or 3 male characters, and which was which in the real versus fake box man scene at the hospital.
This book is not for everyone. Very few in fact. But I did identify and commiserate with the Box Man. Would everyone, if the book was more accessible?
3.25 stars
SPOILERS (possibly not even accurate ones)
What a confounding read! I feel like I got the point of the novel-- the themes, the allegories, that was all clear. But the plot? I think I got it, but I'm not 100% convinced and I'm not even sure it matters. That said, I did like the book, but I would've enjoyed it more if I knew what was going on a little more. It seems purposefully confusing.
A box man is essentially a man who chooses to shut himself off from society as a self protection mechanism. He observes but is himself invisible. The Box Man in the story is one such person, but finds himself lured out by the temptation of love/sex. He struggles. Does he want to put himself out there and take the risk, expose himself? Ultimately he takes the risk. I believe he was happy with that decision even though he was rejected in the end. But he does choose to return to isolation.
I got very confused with the story of the doctor/addict and in the end wasn't sure if there were 2 or 3 male characters, and which was which in the real versus fake box man scene at the hospital.
This book is not for everyone. Very few in fact. But I did identify and commiserate with the Box Man. Would everyone, if the book was more accessible?
3.25 stars
2rebeccanyc
Here's my review, cross posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads.
This is almost certainly the most mystifying book I have ever read! At the start of it, the narrator (or one of them) describes what a box man is (a man who lives with a box over his head that reaches to his hips and that contains the various items he needs for daily life) and says: at this juncture, the box man is me. It gets less clear from there.
In the first part of the novel, the box man describes how to make a box, his life as a box man, how someone else (?) became a box man, being attacked with an air gun, and so on. I found this section even more claustrophobic than I found Abe's The Woman in the Dunes and was almost ready to give up. Then more characters enter the novel including a woman who acts as a nurse and a doctor who may be the person who shot him and may be a fake box man and may be a figment of the box man's imagination. The narrator box man believes, or dreams, or writes, or fantasizes that the nurse has made a deal with him to pay him for the box, but he wants to return the money she has given him. The scene switches to the hospital and its housing area where the doctor and nurse work and live -- either it really shifts or it shifts in the box man's imagination.
There the box man's feelings about sex and love start to emerge. He seems to want contact with the nurse, but mainly just to see her naked. He was formerly a photographer and the idea of seeing without being seen is threaded through the novel in various ways, from taking pictures, to living in a box, to turning out the light, to hiding and looking, and more.
Later we learn a little more about the history of the doctor and the nurse (and another doctor who the doctor is pretending to be and who became addicted to morphine, and who may or not be the same doctor, or even the box man himself), and then there is a box man corpse too. Although some of this is told in a more realistic tone, it is unclear who the narrator is. At the very end, there is a revelation about an event in the box man's childhood that may shed light on his sexual psychology and psychology in general. In fact, there is a lot about sex in the book, including the narrator box man's idea that the legs are the most erotic part of a woman because they enclose her sexual parts (and I note that the box of a box man stops at his hips, so just his legs are exposed). In addition, the book includes grainy dark photographs with captions that are seemingly unrelated to the story.
I've read other reviews of this book, but I still really don't know what to make of it. It is clear that Abe is commenting in some way on how we try to hide ourselves, how repression eventually expresses itself, how we avoid looking at some people and long to look at others. But what this all means, and how to sort out the confusion of characters, narrators, real box men, fake box men, and so on, and whether in fact this is all some sort of drug-induced dream, or all the male characters are aspects of one character, is beyond me.
This is almost certainly the most mystifying book I have ever read! At the start of it, the narrator (or one of them) describes what a box man is (a man who lives with a box over his head that reaches to his hips and that contains the various items he needs for daily life) and says: at this juncture, the box man is me. It gets less clear from there.
In the first part of the novel, the box man describes how to make a box, his life as a box man, how someone else (?) became a box man, being attacked with an air gun, and so on. I found this section even more claustrophobic than I found Abe's The Woman in the Dunes and was almost ready to give up. Then more characters enter the novel including a woman who acts as a nurse and a doctor who may be the person who shot him and may be a fake box man and may be a figment of the box man's imagination. The narrator box man believes, or dreams, or writes, or fantasizes that the nurse has made a deal with him to pay him for the box, but he wants to return the money she has given him. The scene switches to the hospital and its housing area where the doctor and nurse work and live -- either it really shifts or it shifts in the box man's imagination.
There the box man's feelings about sex and love start to emerge. He seems to want contact with the nurse, but mainly just to see her naked. He was formerly a photographer and the idea of seeing without being seen is threaded through the novel in various ways, from taking pictures, to living in a box, to turning out the light, to hiding and looking, and more.
Later we learn a little more about the history of the doctor and the nurse (and another doctor who the doctor is pretending to be and who became addicted to morphine, and who may or not be the same doctor, or even the box man himself), and then there is a box man corpse too. Although some of this is told in a more realistic tone, it is unclear who the narrator is. At the very end, there is a revelation about an event in the box man's childhood that may shed light on his sexual psychology and psychology in general. In fact, there is a lot about sex in the book, including the narrator box man's idea that the legs are the most erotic part of a woman because they enclose her sexual parts (and I note that the box of a box man stops at his hips, so just his legs are exposed). In addition, the book includes grainy dark photographs with captions that are seemingly unrelated to the story.
I've read other reviews of this book, but I still really don't know what to make of it. It is clear that Abe is commenting in some way on how we try to hide ourselves, how repression eventually expresses itself, how we avoid looking at some people and long to look at others. But what this all means, and how to sort out the confusion of characters, narrators, real box men, fake box men, and so on, and whether in fact this is all some sort of drug-induced dream, or all the male characters are aspects of one character, is beyond me.
3StevenTX
Here is my review that I posted on Club Read about a month ago. It is very similar to Rebecca's:
"This is the record of a box man. I am beginning this account in a box. A cardboard box that reaches just to my hips when I put it over my head." The unnamed narrator goes on to describe how to become a box man. A box man lives an anonymous life on the streets, never leaving his box, scavenging for food, viewing the world through a narrow slit, and ignored by everyone.
The Box Man seems at first to be a commentary on the alienation of the individual in modern urban society. But then things get more complex and confusing. There is a false box man, who may also be a doctor, but may just be posing as a doctor. There is a nurse who isn't really a nurse. There is a dead box man, washed up drowned on the shore, who may be the narrator, or he may be the doctor, or the doctor whom the doctor is pretending to be. Many or all of the chapters may simply be dreams. The entire story may be a portrait of a mind deranged by a childhood trauma involving voyeurism and urination (interestingly two of the more pervasive elements in Finnegans Wake as well).
At times the novel is overtly metafictional, such as when one of the characters upbraids the narrator, saying he can't possibly have written the manuscript we are reading in the place and time he says he has written it. There are also several photographs in the books with captions that seem to have nothing to do with the pictures. There are inserted affidavits by other (maybe?) narrators. And for a novel in which nothing sexual actually takes place, there are some intensely erotic passages.
So what is one to make of this book? A social message on the repression of individualism? A psychological study of guilt and alienation? A literary thesis on the author (or reader) as voyeur? It may be all of these, and more. The Box Man is easy to read, but difficult to fathom.
"This is the record of a box man. I am beginning this account in a box. A cardboard box that reaches just to my hips when I put it over my head." The unnamed narrator goes on to describe how to become a box man. A box man lives an anonymous life on the streets, never leaving his box, scavenging for food, viewing the world through a narrow slit, and ignored by everyone.
The Box Man seems at first to be a commentary on the alienation of the individual in modern urban society. But then things get more complex and confusing. There is a false box man, who may also be a doctor, but may just be posing as a doctor. There is a nurse who isn't really a nurse. There is a dead box man, washed up drowned on the shore, who may be the narrator, or he may be the doctor, or the doctor whom the doctor is pretending to be. Many or all of the chapters may simply be dreams. The entire story may be a portrait of a mind deranged by a childhood trauma involving voyeurism and urination (interestingly two of the more pervasive elements in Finnegans Wake as well).
At times the novel is overtly metafictional, such as when one of the characters upbraids the narrator, saying he can't possibly have written the manuscript we are reading in the place and time he says he has written it. There are also several photographs in the books with captions that seem to have nothing to do with the pictures. There are inserted affidavits by other (maybe?) narrators. And for a novel in which nothing sexual actually takes place, there are some intensely erotic passages.
So what is one to make of this book? A social message on the repression of individualism? A psychological study of guilt and alienation? A literary thesis on the author (or reader) as voyeur? It may be all of these, and more. The Box Man is easy to read, but difficult to fathom.
4rebeccanyc
Interesting that we both had somewhat the same take on this novel, Steven. "Difficult to fathom" indeed!
5kidzdoc
Good. I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who was mystified by this book. I won't reread it then.
6socialpages
So pleased to find others were confused as well.
7Myriamo
Interesting animated short-film on http://www.nirvan.com/theboxman
8QueenMitchem
This book was very intersting.
9lilisin
>8 QueenMitchem:
Glad you found it interesting. It's still to this day one of my favorite books and instant recommendation to my literary minded friends.
Glad you found it interesting. It's still to this day one of my favorite books and instant recommendation to my literary minded friends.
